News Headlines - 29 December 2020

▽Chinese Gaming Company CEO Dies After Alleged Poisoning : NPR

The Chinese billionaire CEO of video game developer Yoozoo Group died on Christmas Day following a suspected colleague's alleged poisoning plot.
Lin Qi died at the age of 39, according to Shanghai police. Lin's company, Yoozoo, is best known for its Game of Thrones: Winter Is Coming game.
Before his death, Lin was attached to an upcoming, high-profile Netflix project. Lin'z Yoozoo Group had purchased the rights to the Chinese sci-fi trilogy The Three Body Problem in 2015.

▽Japan developing wooden satellites to cut space junk - BBC News

A Japanese company and Kyoto University have joined forces to develop what they hope will be the world's first satellites made out of wood by 2023.
Sumitomo Forestry said it has started research on tree growth and the use of wood materials in space... Space junk is becoming an increasing problem as more satellites are launched into the atmosphere.
Wooden satellites would burn up without releasing harmful substances into the atmosphere or raining debris on the ground when they plunge back to Earth.

▽All sponsors to extend contracts for postponed Tokyo Olympics - Nikkei Asia

The Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games has reached basic agreements with all 68 domestic sponsors on additional support money needed due to the one-year postponement to next summer as a result of the coronavirus pandemic... The 68 companies include some with dismal earnings prospects amid the COVID-19 crisis. But they reached agreements with the committee to show their support for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics on an "all-Japan" basis, analysts said.
The committee thus expects to secure more than 22 billion yen ($212 million) in additional support, including the supply of materials.

▽Hundreds of British tourists escape quarantine in Swiss ski resort

Hundreds of British tourists forced into quarantine in the Swiss ski resort of Verbier fled in the night rather than seeing their holidays go downhill, the local municipality said Sunday.
Around 200 of the 420 or so affected British tourists in the luxury Alpine ski station quit under the cover of darkness, the SonntagsZeitung newspaper reported... The drastic ruling by the Swiss government also included a 10-day retroactive quarantine for anyone who arrived from Britain since December 14, following the discovery of a new variant of the coronavirus which experts fear spreads more quickly.

▽Boeing 737 Max Resumes Flying U.S. Passengers After 2-Year Halt - The New York Times

Boeing’s troubled 737 Max plane returned to American skies on Tuesday, carrying paying passengers in the United States for the first time in almost two years... The Max was grounded worldwide in March 2019 after 346 people were killed in a pair of crashes, separated by months, in Indonesia and Ethiopia. The accidents and revelations about the plane’s shortcomings sullied the company’s reputation and cost it tens of billions of dollars in damages, government fines and lost orders.